Posted
by
samzenpus
on Wednesday November 22, 2006 @08:44PM
from the I-still-want-my-hover-car dept.

FleaPlus writes "The US Air Force has announced that it is developing an unmanned reusable spaceplane, the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle. The first launch is in 2008 on an Atlas V rocket. The X-37B will be one-fourth the size of the Space Shuttle and serve as a testbed for technologies for future reusable spacecraft. Its predecessor, the X-37, was drop-tested from the Scaled Composites White Knight mothership earlier this year."

Given that the U.S. government and military has made it obvious that it plans to dominate space [washingtonpost.com] I would guess this project has far more ambitious intents than simple orbital research. A small unmanned shuttle would provide the perfect capabilities for detection, destruction, and possibly even retrieval of "enemy" satellites. Add some radar absorbing materials/techniques to the X-37B mini shuttle and you have the perfect space based weapon.

A few of these shuttles in orbit at any one time could provide the ability to quickly take out other countries space capabilities without being as obvious as using a ground based laser or missile. Plus it would be far more accurate.

Jack O'Neill is a General now, I really doubt he'll be up there saving us all. Cameron Mitchell is much more likely. But if there's an Ori invasion, we can have all the fighters in the world up there and the toilet's beams will pound right through them...

Do you understand anything about orbital mechanics?
Orbiting spacecraft cannot "loiter" except in a very few, very special kinds of orbits. The cannot meaningfully "reposition" with the specific impulse limitations of the engines and fuel available today.
Oh, the heck with it: for all intents and purposes they cannot meaningfully do ANY of the things your message suggests.

While that may be true, a missile doesn't really have the capacity to retrieve the target for analysis, or do "in flight" refuelling (spy and weapon satellites have thrusters for station keeping and reorientation tasks).

Do you have any idea the wide variety of orbits used by satellites?Do you have any idea the fuel costs it would take such an "interceptor" shuttle to move amongst these orbits?A missile can do it simply, cheaply, and now. Occam's razor suggests they wouldn't build such a complicated ship for such a simple mission, and that your conspiracy theory is unfounded.

In the development of aerospace technology, Japan has always trailed the USA until now. For many years, the Japanese have been working on an unmanned space shuttle [fas.org], nicknamed "HOPE-X". The craft [www.jaxa.jp] somewhat resembles the American space shuttle.

NASDA, the Japanese space agency that has morphed into JAXA, successfully tested a protoype [space.com]. The program has been canceled due to lack of funding. JAXA intends to use the experimental data and the design schematics for this prototype to develop a manned space plane

Did the United Force Air Force somehow "borrow" the Japanese experimental data and design schematics to develop the American version of an unmanned space plane?

The Airforce has data from the X-15, the SR-71, the Space Shuttle, the Delta Clipper, and pretty much everything from the X-30 through somewhere in the X-40's. They don't need the Japanese design. What they need is funding, commitment, and trust. Three things that the executive branch of the US Government fails in spades to provide.

Given that the U.S. government and military has made it obvious that it plans to dominate space

This advance is getting into orbit with a 1980's Russian rocket motor design (RD-180 in the Atlas) so I don't think NASA cares about the Jingoism and just wants to do what they can with what they can get until they get a good design. The dominate space thing comes down to noisy people in politics who won't provide the funding for their silly schemes.

It should be noted that this is a DARPA project, and NASA really had nothing to do with this test. The big NASA logo on the side is left-over from before NASA dropped the project and it was transfered to DARPA (i.e. the military).

Given that the U.S. government and military has made it obvious that it plans to dominate space

Sure - in some paranoid fantasy universe. Here in the real world our space policy is pretty much the same as our air and sea policies, "the US uses this and reserves the right to protect our usage from interference". (If you haven't read the policy, I suggest you do. The linked article is based on some fantasy - not on the actual policy.)

"If successful, the plane would be the first spacecraft since the shuttle that would be capable of returning experiments back to Earth for analysis."
Buran could do this - they just couldn't afford to fly the thing. Not that I'm suggesting we use Buran, btw... it's been sitting outside for a while.

Still, fairly impressive a fully automated launch and landing. 25 atmospheric flights were also conducted with the OK-GLI model (comparable to Space Shuttle Enterprise). See this site [buran.ru] for cool videos of the launch and general Buran eye candy.

The jet powered takeoff [buran.ru] is a particularly intriguing sight given the reputed brick like qualities of the Shuttle/delta design.

The crew compartment was finished, its just that the test regimine called for an unmanned flight first. At least one cosmonaut volunteered to take the chance and go up in it on that first flight, but was swatted down by management.Its a shame that it was never used; its one flight was a complete success before the program was put on hold due to a financial crisis in the Soviet Union (partially due to the tremendous cost overruns of the Buran/Energia program itself). If one compares the US and Soviet shutt

At the risk of being one of those grammer fascists, I believe calling the then-Soviet shuttle "Buran" would be like calling the U.S. Shuttle "Columbia." Buran, meaning snow storm, was the name of Soviet Shuttle number 1, and I suppose the other craft could have been named "Galileo" if the Soviets were Trekkers.

On the other hand, we don't know what to call it other than "Buran" because the Soviet Space Transportation System (SSTS?) was never given a proper name other than letting people call it Buran.

The Russian and U.S. "capsules" were blunt body reentry vehicles -- some were ballistic, others used an offset CG for a small amount of hypersonic lift to mitigate the G-load and thermal load of reentry. Apollo along with the Russian Zond used offset CG to good effect for reentry from lunar distance. All landed mainly by parachute with either crushable couch struts to mitigate a land impact (Apollo, if they had to go down on land) or braking rockets -- the Russians may have crumped a Soyuz with a landing rocket failure, resulting in broken teeth.

The Shuttle famously uses a delta wing that produces a large amount of lift everywhere from hypersonic reentry down to the subsonic landing speed, and this famously drove up the cost and weight. Max Faget had a straight-wing Shuttle proposal that was equally famously rejected, both on the idea that straight-wing craft have nasty hypersonic handling (think Yeager and his tumble in the X1A, his tumble in the NF104, and Mike Adam's accident in the X15) along with the Air Force wanting the Shuttle to have more hypersonic cross range. But Faget's explanation of the thing is that the straight wing vehicle pancaked in -- it didn't really fly on those wings in hypersonic reentry -- and the straight wing Shuttle was like a cookie cutter applied to an Apollo heat shield, and the control of blunt body reentry with offset CG for some small amount of lift was well tested. But the Faget Shuttle would have to do some kind of Alley Oop maneuver at subsonic speed to transition from a full stall pancake attitude to proper flight on those straight wings, and there was some concern about doing that stall recovery safely.

Then there was the DC-X, the closest thing to a Buck Rogers spaceship from the 1930's comic books, which was to reenter as a blunt body (don't remember if it was nose first or tail first) but land on its tail using rocket thrust. Of course the DC-X on landing is this big mainly empty fuel tank so it is not going that fast before the rockets cut in for landing, but if the rockets fail, you are going to crump that thing.

Perhaps the only new thing under the sun for reentry (although not an orbital reentry) was the Rutans' "shuttle cock" folding tail where they reentered with a stable, high drag configuration and then straightened the tail for atmospheric flight and landing.

NASA wants to go back to the Apollo style reentry and landing but probably on land using parachutes and landing rockets like Soyuz and the Chinese spacecraft. You save big time on weight and there are safety advantages in terms of heat tile damage, but this low-control landing has problems of its own. Do you suppose NASA could wait awhile on the outcome of this Air Force project to see how it turns out?

Man Out Of Space (MOOS) (50's or 60's?) was a proposal for an emergency escape system from a spacecraft that invoved the use of a heat shield in a can. A foam filled bag that froze into a giant blob was deployed from the back of an astronaut that acted as a balute and heat shield. The astronaut actually used a hand held rocket gun to de-orbit. I've heard of ballutes with relation to other projects, but can't think of the source at the moment.

The Roton launch vehicle (1990's) looked something like DC-X (tail-first SSTO and landing) intended to use rotors to slow it down as it descended tail first from orbit, much like a helecopter during an unpowered landing. A prototype was flown that demonstrated a landing using rocket-powered rotors. Tom Clancy was involved in funding it, but he had to back out when his finances got scrambled by a divorce, eventually leading to the company's demise.

But the Faget Shuttle would have to do some kind of Alley Oop maneuver at subsonic speed to transition from a full stall pancake attitude to proper flight on those straight wings, and there was some concern about doing that stall recovery safely.

I don't see why, when you have all the speed and altitude in the world. Maybe it was a stability thing in the stalled mode. Smaller vortexes around the short-cord wings will give you more buffet and increase RCS fuel consumption.

Max Faget, who died recently, was regarded as the "American Korelev" or perhaps Sergei Pavlovich is best known as the "Russian Faget." The name Faget is pronounced "fuh-ZHAY" because he was a Cajun.

OK, OK, I misspelled grammar, but I did not misspell a perjorative word. The man probably had to live down his name everywhere outside some parts of Louisiana, but if a person could claim credit for the Mercury spacecraft blunt body reentry shape, the solid rocket escape tower, and the throttable descent engi

But the Faget Shuttle would have to do some kind of Alley Oop maneuver at subsonic speed to transition from a full stall pancake attitude to proper flight on those straight wings, and there was some concern about doing that stall recovery safely.

It wasn't just flight characteristics that caused the rejection of the Faget type Shuttle, tere were also serious concerns about reentry areodynamics. The sharp junction of wing and body in particular lead to shock waves impinging on the vehicle body, which means

If the US went to war at some point in the next decade or two with Korea, Iran, China, etc., it would likely need the ability to rapidly re-deploy satellites that are knocked out. In case you think an altercation between China and the US is unlikely, they've reportedly already started messing around with US spy satelites by shining big ground based lazers at them (possibly to blind them).Something to think about: if China or another nation knocked out an unmanned facility in "international" territory (e.g.

If the US went to war at some point in the next decade or two with Korea, Iran, China, etc., it would likely need the ability to rapidly re-deploy satellites that are knocked out. In case you think an altercation between China and the US is unlikely, they've reportedly already started messing around with US spy satelites by shining big ground based lazers at them (possibly to blind them).

Something to think about: if China or another nation knocked out an unmanned facility in "international" territory (e.g.

Actually, there will probably be a few stepping stones between now and then before they can actually use it against us like that. First they'll have to guard us from Communism, then it'll be terrorists. Next it will be 3rd world countries, then hijacked spacecraft/weapons. Next we'll turn the weapons around and start facing external threats--this will lead to huge weapons capable of destroying incoming asteroids. Lastly you'll find out about E.T.'s that may or not be a threat so we'll have to develop even m

Linux will be used for long duration (manned and unmanned) missions such as Mars and the outer planets. The other OS will be MS Windows for short term unmanned suicide missions such as crashing into asteroids and comets.

When political pressures require that an unmanned craft have a teacher subroutine, then we know that bureaucrats have replaced engineers in making engineering decisions, and it soon will crash and burn.

From everything I've read about the Space Shuttle design process, a major goal in making it reusable was to reduce the cost of getting into space. However, several competing interests within the government saddled NASA with conflicting demands. Attempting to satisfy everyone with one big multi-use tool made the whole system much more expensive to operate and maintain. It also strained the definition of "reusable" by needing major components that weren't reusable at all, and requiring the Shuttle itself to be almost entirely rebuilt between launches.

Now we're seeing more specialized designs. Heavy cargo launchers can be much cheaper when they don't have to carry people. Crew launch vehicles can be made safer at less cost if they aren't also being asked to carry heavy cargo loads.

The X-37B, if it leads to spacecraft that are truly reusable, could be another step toward making everything we do in space less costly and more productive. In the long run, that goal is far more important than any other mission in space, whether the short term goals are military or civilian ones.

"Crew launch vehicles can be made safer at less cost if they aren't also being asked to carry heavy cargo loads"The Ares 1 rocket, which will launch the crew capsule of future moon missions is, by most standards, a heavy launch vehicle. It has a low-earth-orbit payload comparable to the delta IV - Heavy, titan 4, and Atlas 5 Heavy. It is also not a cheap rocket. The Atlas 5 on which this test vehicle will be launched, costs a couple hundred million dollars to launch.While there are efforts to make space che

Doc, those people aren't starving. When the government says some people "have hunger" or "food insecurity", it's really the literal meaning. Sometimes they're hungry. That's not the same thing as starving - if you ever see a TV segment on this the thing that will jump out at you is most of them are grossly fat.

So no, 12% of Americans are not starving. Additionally, the government is getting these statistics from bureaucrats that want a bigger budget, who in turn are asking people on public assistance, in effect, if they want more money. So this number is very suspect even for what it is.

If you dig deeper you'll find these are people who are "falling through the cracks", and by that I don't mean there aren't programs to help them, I mean they aren't doing what they need to do to get the assistance that's available. So money isn't the solution to this problem.

Where do you get your certainty that the starving people are just lying to get more money? I get mine that they're starving from various government studies which are trying to deny that Americans are starving, to save money (to send it to Iraq, instead), but which can't hide the fact that Americans are starving.

Actually none of those 15% of NYC households were starving, they were all fed through charities and food stamps. There is no evidence that large amounts of people in NYC are facing extreme malnutrition outside of the fashion model industry.

On the other hand, each week 3,500 Zimbabweans actually die from malnutrition [speroforum.com]. Life expectancy in Zimbabwe at 34 for women and 37 for men, thanks mainly to a government that does not protect private property, but takes it whenever it wants.

First of all, this article, like the last one, doesn't say anything about starvation. It says hunger. You're a technical guy, so let me put it this way, okay? Hunger != Starvation for the purposes of government studies. What they're saying is that 15.4% of New Yorkers said they didn't think they had enough food at least one time over a three year period. That doesn't necessarily mean they didn't get enough calories to be healthy, it means that they didn't ge

Don't be fooled by the size of someone. Yes, people can get fat by eating too much but they can also get fat by eating the wrong things. The sad thing is that many low income people don't have the education to maintain a balanced diet and if you don't have the money for rent it becomes difficult to even cook for yourself, let alone store food. Contrary to popular belief, in many low income households he provider(s) work long hours and multiple low wage jobs just to scrape by. This leaves little or no ti

I agree the fast food diet isn't healthy, but I don't see how you could actually starve while eating big macs and fries. I have read about cases where very fat people have starved to death, but in every case I've seen it's because they faced an acute calorie shortage because of circumstances or some crazy crash diet. The malnutrition poor people in America face results in quality-of-life problems, not actual starvation.

This idea "the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer" is a myth, not

Why don't you click on the link I helpfully provided, or google for yourself? The effort you just took to look up the definition to deny the facts could have been spent reading the actual reports of the facts. And learning something.

And maybe learning how to do something to feed Americans. A pretty good way to observe Thanksgiving, instead of just eating ourselves unconscious while our neighbors go to be hungry.

The reactions by mods and repliers to my documented points about hunger and military spending show just how the status quo of inverted values is enforced in America. The people replying in this thread will not go hungry, probably, as they can pay for Net connections and computers. They read Slashdot to brag about the toys they have, had, and want, indulging a technofetish that is the main male consumerism. Hungry Americans are mostly out of sight, in ghettoes (urban and otherwise), never put on the TV that

It's worth noting that a high speed suborbital spaceplane was actually mentioned in the History Channel's program on Area 51, some years ago. The man who mentioned it in the program, Mark Farmer, speculated that its' use would primarily be as a fast international troop dropship, although this article does not seem to indicate that.

The HC program also mentioned how it had been later discovered that aircraft such as the AR-71 Blackbird were being developed at Groom some time before official public announcements were made, and that aircraft whose existence was continually officially denied would suddenly be released to a museum after they had been decommissioned. This article possibly lends more evidence in support of that being the case.

Even from a purely empiricist, non UFO perspective, it is tantalising to wonder about what other things they're possibly cooking up under the ground out there, as well...especially considering both the amazing technological advancement and aesthetic beauty of the aircraft we have already seen produced by the facility. This article and the historical cases (such as the Blackbird and stealth programs) also possibly lend hope to the idea that given enough time after the development of the individual inventions/aircraft, we will eventually be able to find out.

The US Air Force has announced that it is developing an unmanned reusable spaceplane [CC], the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle.

I wonder if the production model is going to have human cargo? It seems not. Humans require a lot of support systems to make the trip. All those support systems take up weight and volume, reducing the cargo carrying capacity of the vehicle.

With the advances in flight automation one wonders how long it will before ground based systems are controlling aircraft instead of a crew in

I'm guessing it won't be long before the human up front spends most of their time reading magazines.

Essentially it is that way now. Autopilot systems exist for take off, flight and landing. Taxi is about the only thing not automated so far and it would not be difficult for that either and has been proposed.

pilots are still needed to handle emergency situations. difficult landing conditions are often passed to the autopilot though because of its faster response time. really, really difficult landing cond